Accountability

The MetroHealth System to Open Community Hospitals in Cleveland Heights and Parma

The MetroHealth System is announcing plans to convert facilities in Cleveland Heights and Parma to community hospitals. The locations will focus on caring for patients who benefit from shorter hospital stays.

The current medical offices, located at 10 Severance Circle in Cleveland Heights and 12301 Snow Road in Parma, each have emergency departments and services including lab, pharmacy and radiology. The sites will become community hospitals with the addition of 12 single-occupancy patient rooms at the Cleveland Heights location and 16 at Parma. Patients requiring more intensive specialty care can access MetroHealth’s main hospital campus, which is less than 12 miles away from Cleveland Heights and Parma.

With the addition of the community hospitals, 80 percent of residents in Cuyahoga County will be within a 15-minute drive of a MetroHealth hospital. Construction is set to be complete by the end of this year and the facilities ready for patients by January 2018.

“Patients and their families want to be as close to home as possible when it comes to receiving medical care, especially when it comes to hospitalization. The support the patients receive from their friends and family in a familiar setting, helps their recuperation,” said Akram Boutros, MD, FACHE, president and CEO of MetroHealth.

The new hospitals will feature single-occupancy rooms, with ample space to accommodate family members. The units are designed to create a soothing atmosphere and includes floors which minimize noise and lighting to support a patient’s recovery. The esthetics will mirror the expanded Critical Care Pavilion, which opened in 2016.

"MetroHealth is contributing to the growing health care economy in our city," said Timothy J. DeGeeter, mayor of Parma. "Our residents will benefit from having access to all levels of quality health care, without having to leave their community."

"We are so pleased to see MetroHealth expanding service in Cleveland Heights,” said Tanisha R. Briley, city manager of Cleveland Heights. “This investment will not only provide new health care options for our residents and the surrounding communities, it will also create economic benefits in a high priority area for redevelopment in our city."

The announcement comes as the health system is undergoing a major campus transformation, with plans to build a new 12-story hospital tower on its main campus. The expansion into the community is part of MetroHealth’s strategy to keep its focus on what patients prefer – having access to all the levels of care they need, in their own communities.

The facilities in Cleveland Heights and Parma were formerly HealthSpan urgent care sites and medical offices. In 2015, MetroHealth entered into an agreement with HealthSpan to transition the sites into MetroHealth facilities, ensuring that all residents of those communities have around-the-clock access to emergency care, observation units and other specialty services. The emergency departments opened in February 2016, followed by medical offices in April 2016. The addition of single-occupancy patient rooms to these sites allows for a seamless transfer of a patient to the hospital setting, while remaining close to their homes.

About the MetroHealth System

The MetroHealth System, Cuyahoga County’s public health system, is honoring its commitment to create a healthier community by building a new hospital on its main campus in Cleveland. The building, and the 25 acres of green space around it, are catalyzing the revitalization of MetroHealth’s West Side neighborhood.

MetroHealth will break ground on the new hospital in late 2018, using nearly $1 billion it borrowed on its own credit after dramatically improving its finances. In the past five years, MetroHealth’s operating revenue has increased by 44.5 percent and its number of employees by 21 percent. Today, its staff of 7,700 provides care at MetroHealth’s four hospitals, four emergency departments and more than 20 health centers and 40 additional sites throughout Cuyahoga County. In the past year, MetroHealth has served 300,000 patients at more than 1.4 million visits in its hospitals and health centers, 75 percent of whom are uninsured or covered by Medicare or Medicaid.

The health system is home to Cuyahoga County’s most experienced Level I Adult Trauma Center, verified since 1992, and the only adult and pediatric burn center in the state of Ohio.

As an academic medical center, MetroHealth is committed to teaching and research. Each active staff physician holds a faculty appointment at Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine and its main campus hospital houses a Cleveland Metropolitan School District high school of science and health.